came down, it would be to welcome a stranger. All that was left of him whom he had loved and honored was lying cold and still under the chapel floor. He would go in and see the place once more, and then leave it once for all. New men and new methods might do for other people; let those who would worship the rising star, he at least would be faithful to the sun which had set. And so he got up, and walked to the chapel door and unlocked it, fancying himself the only mourner in all the broad land, and feeding on his selfish sorrow.

He passed through the vestibule, and then paused for a moment to glance over the empty benches. His heart was still proud and high, and he walked up to the seat which he had last occupied as a sixth-form boy, and sat himself down there to collect his thoughts.

And, truth to tell, they needed collecting and setting in order not a little. The memories of eight years were all dancing through his brain, and carrying him about whither they would; while beneath them all his heart was throbbing with the dull sense of a loss that could never be made up to him. The rays of the evening sun came solemnly through the painted windows above his head, and fell in gorgeous colors on the opposite wall, and the perfect stillness soothed his spirit by little and little. And he turned to the pulpit, and looked at it, and then, leaning forward, with his head on his hands, groaned aloud.

If he could only have seen the Doctor again for one five minutes, to have told him all that was in his heart, what he owed him, how he loved and reverenced him, and would, by God's help, follow his steps in life and death, he could have borne it all without a murmur. But that he should have gone away forever without knowing it all, was too much to bear.

"But am I sure that he does not know it all?" The thought made him start. "May he not even now be near me, in this very chapel? If he be, am I sorrowing as he would have as I shall wish to have sorrowed when I meet him

me sorrow

again?"

He raised himself up and looked round; and after a minute rose and walked humbly down to the lowest bench, and sat down on the very seat which he had occupied his first Sunday at Rugby. And then the old memories rushed back again, but softened and subdued, and soothing him as he let himself be carried away by them. And he looked up at the great painted window above the altar, and remembered how, when a little boy, he used to try not to look through it at the elm trees and the rocks, before the painted glass came and the subscription for the painted glass and the letter he wrote home for money to give to it. And there, down below, was the very name of the boy who sat on his right hand on that first day, scratched rudely in the oak panelling.

And then came the thought of all his old schoolfellows, and form after form of boys, nobler, and braver, and purer than he, rose up and seemed to rebuke him. Could he not think of them, and what they had felt and were feeling; they who had honored and loved from the first the man whom he had taken years to know and love? Could he not think of those yet dearer to him who was gone, who bore his name and shared his blood, and were now without a husband or a father?

Then the grief which he began to share with others became gentle and holy, and he rose up once more, and walked up the steps to the altar; and while tears flowed freely down his cheeks, knelt down humbly and hopefully, to lay down there his share

of a burden which had proved itself too heavy for him to bear

in his own strength.

Here let us leave him where better could we leave him, than at the altar, before which he had first caught a glimpse of the glory of his birthright, and felt the drawing of the bond which links all living souls together in one brotherhood? the grave beneath the altar of him who had opened his eyes to see that glory, and softened his heart till it could feel that bond. THOMAS HUGHES.

at

The empty song repeats itself. No more?
Yea, that is life: make this forenoon sublime,
This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer,
And time is conquered, and thy crown is won.

TROUBLES

A crowd of troubles passed him by
As he with courage waited;
He said, "Where do your troubles fly
When you are thus belated?"

"We go," they say, "to those who mope,
Who look on life dejected,

Who weakly say 'good-bye' to hope,

We go where we're expected."

- SILL.

UNDER THE OLD ELM

WASHINGTON

Soldier and statesman, rarest unison;
High-poised example of great duties done
Simply as breathing, a world's honors worn
As life's indifferent gifts to all men born;
Dumb for himself, unless it were to God,

But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent,
Tramping the snow to coral where they trod,
Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content;
Modest, yet firm as Nature's self; unblamed
Save by the men his nobler temper shamed;
Never seduced through show of present good
By other than unsetting lights to steer

New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast mood
More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear;
Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still
In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will,
Not honored then or now because he wooed
The popular voice, but that he still withstood:
Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one
Who was all this and ours, and all men's,

Washington!

For nine years Benjamin Franklin represented the United States in France, and was the pride and pet of the people. His sound sense, his good humor, his distinguished personality, gave him the freedom of society everywhere. He had the ability to adapt himself to conditions, and was everywhere at home.

Once he attended a memorable banquet in Paris, shortly after the close of the Revolutionary War. Among the speakers was the English Ambassador, who responded to the toast, "Great Britain." The Ambassador dwelt at length on England's greatness, and likened her to the sun that sends its beneficent rays on all. The next toast was "America,” and Franklin was called